How Republicans Lost Their Own Rigged Game

Following in the footsteps of Donald Trump in business, Senate Majority Leasder Mitch McConnell tried to run a crooked con job to pass a repeal of Obamacare and like Trump, failed.

No other political leader in the history of Congress has ever tried to pass such a monumental law, affecting 1/6 of the nation’s economy and the lives (and premature deaths) of tens of millions of Americans.

But McConnell has displayed that he has no conscience. He shamelessly put his party and their lust for power first, above the health and lives of the American people and the legacy of The Senate.

He violated every precedent and structure of The Senate, refusing to allow committees to do their jobs, to hold hearings with health care experts or even Americans whose healthcare was at stake. He moved forward without getting a CBO score on his “Skinny Bill” and seeking any information on the economic and health impact of the massive changes he was trying to achieve.

He just wanted to win.

McConnell and the other dishonest Republicans supporting this horrendous bill…that they jaw-droppingly claimed would be a disaster and sought Paul Ryan’s assurance that The House wouldn’t approve it and make it law if The Senate passed it…used a lame excuse to cover up their real motivation.

They claimed that they were elected to repeal Obamacare, alleging that they were just following the will of the people. Yet, faced with polls showing 87% of Americans don’t want their repeal bill, they still tried to force it down America’s throat. The lie these cowards used to try and pass this was transparent. They couldn’t have cared less what their voters wanted.

Consider the real truth as to why McConnell and his fellow Repubs did all they could to cheat, lie and deceive to take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans…

…all that matters to them is getting re-elected and retaining power. They have proven that they will sacrifice millions of Americans and even the destruction of the American insurance system just to keep themselves from being “primaried” from the Right by wing nuts who would otherwise happily run against them on how much crueler they would be to Americans.

But since killing the ACÁ was just a hollow political manipulation of the Repub base and lacked any genuine concepts to improve healthcare, it was rightly doomed and toxic.

Poor McConnell, speaking right after losing the vote, was a whiny little Mitch, quickly blaming Democrats for their refusing to participate.

Such a bald faced liar, McConnell is…and not the legislative “genius” so many say of him (he’s a genius because he cheats, lies and hides bills from even his own party that would destroy America’s health insurance system?).

McConnell and Paul Ryan started this process under Reconciliation, meaning it was a Republican only process. McConnell then broke with the standard process of The Senate and created a white-only, Republican-only, male-only panel of 16 yes-men from The Senate to rubber stamp an ACA repeal and Medicaid destruction bill that he designed with his closest cronies.

Democrats were shut out of any participation in this effort from the very beginning. It takes a royal douche to take a huge crap on Senate rules, shut out all Dems and most Republicans then rush a bill to a vote that even McConnell knew was a disaster…then blame those who were purposely shut out of it all for it’s failure.

Maybe now, some Republicans can agree on some realities.

1. Mitch McConnell is not a genius or good leader. He just tries to win by cheating.
2. It’s bad idea to try and pass a bill that you know is horrible and makes you beg The House not to allow it to become law.
3. There’s a reason that “regular order” is called “regular” and why it has always been used in The Senate  to pass any meaningful bill. Cheating and forcing a hated bill through quickly without time for consideration is doomed to failure and self-evident of a bill that doesn’t deserve to win a vote.
4. Respecting the will of the voters means respecting their opinions today when you have a vote to make, not what they may have wanted and what you vowed 7 years ago.
5. Health care is not just a vehicle for your own re-election or position of power.  It means life and death to real people, the ones who you are supposed to be working for and they don’t like it when you vote to ruin their lives and hasten their deaths.

Democrats have not been taking the kind of obnoxious victory lap on Repeal being defeated as Trump and House Repubs did when they passed their version and held a huge victory party on cable news.

Dems have been saying that if Repeal is dead, they are ready, willing and able to work with Repubs on accomplishing the goals of improving exchanges stability, reducing insurance and pharma costs and growing enrollment…what Repubs falsely alleged their corrupt bills would accomplish.

This is what the majority of Americans want to see. Cooperation between Repubs and Dems and fixing the ACA.

Republicans have so far ignored what Americans want, time will tell if Repubs have finally grown so desperate, that they may consider representing the wishes of their constituents.